Problems confronting Russia and affecting Russo-British political and economic intercourse; a retrospect & forecast

Front matter

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

Preface

The present publication comprises fifteen chapters, each of which treats a particular aspect of the problems now confronting Russia and Russo-British political and economic intercourse.

Each chapter is intended to be an independent essay, while together they form a whole which is throughout an appreciation of the evolution of Russia and of the continuation and further development of close friendly relations between the two countries.

Some of the essays have been partly reprinted by the kind permission of the editors of such periodicals as the Russian section of the Times, the Hibbert Journal, the Contemporary Review, the Asiatic Review, the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, the Journal of the United Russia Societies Association, and the Russian Quarterly.

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Contents

CHAP. PAGE

INTRODUCTION xi

I. THE EVOLUTION OF THE STATE AND SOCIAL

Chapter I The Evolution Of The State And Social Organisations Of Russia

The idea of Russia current amongst foreigners, especially before the Revolution, was that of a backward country with a torpid population condemned to stagnation. That this is a mistaken conception may easily be proved.

One of the leading features of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries — the democratic ideal — has found full expression in Russia, and in this respect Russia may be justly recognised as congenial in essence to the national spirit that governs Great Britain.

To a certain extent the Russia of the past was under the influence of Byzantine principles, Tartar methods of administration and German tutelage, but at the same time she bore throughout features of the democratic ideals of human brotherhood, charity, and love of personal freedom. This can easily be ascertained if one consults Russia's historic past without bias and prejudice. Before the Tartar invasion, which overthrew the whole fabric of Russian social and State institutions, the existing centres of Russian life were the great Republics of Pskoff and Novgorod in the north, and the principality of Kieff in the south. Both were founded and built up on truly constitutional lines.

When Moscow first succeeded in shaking off the Tartar yoke the prince of that town assumed, so to say, automatically the power of the Tartar Khans and modelled his reign

I - A after Tartar rule. To confirm his power still more, he adopted certain Byzantine attributes of statesmanship. Byzantium, from whence Russia has invested herself with the Christian religion, also exercised an influence in clerical hierarchy. Then came the time of the Europeanisation of Russia under such reformers as Peter the Great, Catherine II, and Alexander II. They were dazzled by the civilisation of Western Europe, and instead of reverting to the old traditions of Russian State rule, they thought to secure quicker progress by adopting the forms of West-European culture. As Germany was the neighbouring State it was only too natural that an infiltration of German methods in Russia took place to a certain extent. The " Tabel of Rangach," the Act by which Peter the Great organised the whole State Service, is strongly influenced by German bureaucratic ideas. Thus the Russian State employee, the Chinovnik {Chin means rank), became in his character a sort of strange cross-breed between the Tartar Collector of Taxes, the Baskak, and the German Regierungsbeamte. He was considered as a more or less heterogeneous element in Russian life and did not enjoy popularity. Gogol's Revisor is a proof of it.

Another feature of Russian democracy is the absence of feudal relics of the past and of plutocracy — ^this bastard of aristocracy ! — which is paving the way to social revolution. Russian democracy manifests itself in a thousand ways ; for instance, in Russian Lterature and art. Can there be anything more democratic than the works of Count Leo Tolstoy, Gorky, and many other Russian writers, or the art of Verestchagin ? It is most characteristic that Englishmen who have lived for many years in Russia and know Russian life well, often maintain that more personal freedom is enjoyed in Russia than in England.

This, however, refers to the social side of Russian life. In public life and as regards a constitutional system Russia is, of course, not yet the equal of Great Britain — the world's model of public life. Nevertheless, the progress of constitutional freedom was more pronounced when the Duma was first called into being than when freedom made its appearance in England. The promulgation of the Russian constitutional Magna Charta gave to the Empire a franchise which was framed on much more democratic lines than that which England obtained when her barons wrested the Magna Charta from their sovereign. Moreover, the work of the town Dumas, the Zemstvos (county councils), and the Volostnia Oupravlenia (district councils) bears witness to the spirit of self-government which animated Russian public life and may be compared with analogous institutions of self-government in Great Britain.

There is no use in speaking of barbarism, where barbarism does not exist, as there is also no use in assuming that the specific individuality of a civilised nation has not the right of existence. Amongst civilised nations there must necessarily be differences in the mode of life, qualitatively, without necessarily entailing a quantitative gradation in the degree of culture. There are many difierent forms of culture, all of which have the right to exist in accordance with differences of climate and race, based on broad-mindedness, tolerance, and justice, and avoiding a narrow-minded tendency to reduce the beautiful diversity in the life of nations to one universal pattern of culture.

It is a truism that Russia, in comparison with Great Britain, is backward in education, means of communication, industry, and enterprise, but at any rate and to all intents and purposes the Russian nation can vindicate for itself a deep-rooted spirit of Christian love and forbearance, a true democratic conception of social life, and a firm will to progress in the evolution of human existence. A nation endowed with such ideals can truly be called a cultured nation. After having been estranged from European civilisation for nearly two hundred years (from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century) by the vile Tartar yoke, after having passed through a not altogether pleasant Kindergarten period of German pedantic schooling, after having, during the present war, been sorely tried by the invasion of an implacable enemy, Russia has become more and more alive to her true destination in the worlrl, viz. to assure to Christian ideals their highest possible realisation in life. Her task in fulfilling that destination is greatly facilitated by the fact that sympathy is the most predominant feature of the soul of the nation. It is precisely sympathy which is the primary root of all ethics of Christian morality, and of that which is good in human nature.

Another side of human existence which contains the means of measuring culture as a higher modus of life is the influence and position of women in the social fabric. The position of women in human society has always been the touchstone of culture and civilisation. The women in Russia have not struggled so much for their own special interests as has been the case in Great Britain, engendering amongst a certain class a hostility to the opposite sex. They have thought it more important for the progress of the country to assist the men in practical political and social work, and in so doing they have proved, more than any feministic agitation for women's rights could do, that they possess sufficient energy, capacity for work, spirit of selfdenial, acumen and interest for the public weal to make them desirable helpmates in all walks of life and also in politics and State administration. This refers to nearly aU classes of the population of Russia. In the peasantry, women, in the absence of men, who often go away for the whole summer or winter to find lucrative work in other districts and in towns, not only do hard physical work — they plough, furrow, harrow, and sow — but they deliberate at the village motes {Skhody), pass resolutions, and do all the administrative work like men.

In the educated classes Russian women are even more proficient Their thirst of knowledge and their industry in acquiring learning and science is especially noteworthy. All University towns possess women's university colleges, and in the Tomsk University women are allowed to take medical degrees. They practise as physicians. There are schools for trained women as architects, chemists, electricians, and so forth. They do the important work of agricultural instructors after having been qualified as agricultural experts. Under the Zemstvos and municipal councils they excel in important administrative work and in the supervision of hospitals. In family and society they exercise an influence and occupy a position which is often equal, if not superior, to that of the men. This is not so much due to feminine social prerogatives as to their character, will-power, perfect temperance, and understanding of the practical requirements of life, in which they often surpass the men.

In the whole Russian literature the steadfast character of the women forms a predominant feature. Whether it be Pushkin, Ostrovski, Turgenieff, Tolstoy, Dostoievsky, or Tchehoff, their women characters, taken from life, are always prominent. Remember the proud Lisa in comparison with the characterless Evgeni Onegin, Anna Karenina, and the heroines of Turgenieff 's novels — they all tell the tale of the superiority of Russian women's character.

Broadly speaking, the foundation of contemporary Russia is the work of Peter the Great, but even his genius must have failed to create a social structure so lasting and so capable of further development had not the material at his command been equal to his great task. Let us characterise the founder and his material, the Russian nation, in a few words.

Peter the Great has often been accused of not being sufficiently national in his reforms. Of course he believed in Western European methods. He travelled widely, for the purpose of self-instruction, and also spent some time in England in order to acquaint himself with English life and methods. But none the less his personality and his whole life bear the characteristic features of Russian individuality. His aims were broad in the extreme, one might almost say immeasurable ; his principles of action radical in the highest possible degree. He devoted himself to the task set before him with passionate self-renunciation, unreservedly serving his country with all the power at his command, even to the extent of passing a death sentence on his only son, who had dared to endanger his life-work by plotting with the reactionary party against him. At the same time this all-powerful autocrat was as unsophisticated and simple in his behaviour towards all with whom he came into contact as Russians generally are.

From his own point of view Peter the Great was certainly right to revert to Western European methods of State organisation. He realised that the only way by which Russia covdd secure herself against European aggression was by appl5dng European methods. When the Japanese ports, as the result of a quarrel with England, had been bombarded by British men-of-war, the Japanese nation reaUsed that the European foe could only be held back by opposing him with their own weapons. That was the commencement of the European reforms of Japan and of her world-power. In the same way, when Northern Russia was invaded by the armies of Charles XII of Sweden, and the untrained warriors of Peter the Great had been badly beaten at Narva, Peter had only one course open to him, namely, to reorganise his army on European lines, to supply them with the same up-to-date weapons, and use the same methods of warfare as those to which Charles owed his victory. That was the beginning of Russia's world-power. By the Battle of Poltava Russia was saved from Swedish supremacy. If Peter the Great had not had the foresight to reform the Russian army in this way, the north of Russia would undoubtedly have fallen a prey to Sweden. His reforms, therefore, must be regarded as constituting the right procedure for ensuring to Russia the position she occupied prior to the overthrow of Tsardom.

Peter the Great has also been criticised for his uncompromising attitude towards any elements in Russia which opposed him. But his true greatness manifested itself in his undeterred steadfastness, and his clear perception of the impossibility of carrying out his great reforms if hampered by the retrograde members of his antiquated Council of Boyars and the hitherto unchecked, conservative power of the clergy.

The material upon which he had to work — the Russian nation — consists at present of people two-thirds of whom speak the Russian language and belong to the Greek Orthodox faith or to religious sects akin to it, the remaining third being composed of various other races. The Great Russians, who are the centre and kernel aroimd which the Empire crystallised, are Slavs. In appearance they are tall and of powerful build, with regular features, fair complexions, and blue eyes. The type is best preserved in some parts of the previously free State of Novgorod and in the forest regions of the north, while in the centre and east of Russia the population has somewhat changed its original type by the assimilation of Finnish-Mongolian tribes, with pronounced cheek-bones, round noses, and irregular facial contours. The Little Russian, in the south of Russia, possesses all the features of the Southern races, being dark, vivacious, endowed with a rich imagination, and devoted to music and poetry.

The language of the Great and Little Russians is sonorous. It is rich in vocabulary and inflexions of the verb, and presents one of the most perfect mediums for expressing the deepest thoughts and the most subtle emotions of the soul. It is very adaptable to the description of all the varied circumstances of life. It is the surest guarantee of the future of the Russian nation, being in itself a monument of greatness and of intellectual wealth and strength. I have met Englishmen in Russia who, without having lost touch with their English nationality, had become quite enthusiastic about the beauty of the Russian language. It is probably also due to this superiority of the language that among the leading theorists of Slavophilism and Panslavism in Russia, not only Russian, but also German names are found, such as Miiller, Freygang, Hilferding, Ostaken, Dahl, Grot, and others. The genius of such literary giants as Pushkin, LermontofE, Gogol, Alexis and Leo Tolstoy, Turgenieff, Dostoievsky, and others would have been of little effect had they not had at their command the Russian language, in which the Russian soul has found its most perfect expression.

Contemporary Russia has been " gathered," as it is put in historic Russian language, first of all by the Great Russians.

The foundation of this great Empire was the result of the energy, valour, and strong-headed statesmanship of the Muscovite Tsars, who in a series of victorious wars overcame the Tartars, the Poles, the Livonian Order, the Swedes, the Northern Russian Republics of Pskoff and Novgorod, and the rebellious Little Russians, and succeeded everywhere in establishing their rule. In addition, a series of enterprising private individuals like Yermak, the conqueror of Siberia, helped to increase the territory of the Empire, rendering for Russia similar services to those rendered to England by Raleigh, Francis Drake, Cook, and many others. Thus the Great Russians have been the founders, augmenters, and preservers of the Empire. But none the less it cannot be overlooked that the Little Russians and the rest of Russia's population which belong to other races, as, for instance, the Poles, the Lithuanians, the Baltic stock of Teutonic descent, the Finlanders, the Letts, the Esthonians, the Caucasians, and the different tribes inhabiting the south-east and the east of the Empire, have also had a certain share in that achievement. Of course, halfcivilized races such as the Samoyeds, Kalmuks, Kirghiz, Yakuts, Kamtchadale, and so on, could not possibly have exercised any influence on Russian history. On the other hand, people who were, at the time of their conquest by Russia, more advanced in civilisation than the Great Russians themselves were bound to affect the destinies of the Empire.

By the law of the Empire the population was divided into four groups or classes — the Clergy, the Nobility, the Burghers, and the Peasants. Their several functions in the State and in the social fabric of the nation differed considerably. Religion and Church have always been of paramount importance in Russia The Russian is by nature religious ; he likes his whole life to be in constant touch with religious practices, and he attaches great importance to Church ceremonies. He strictly observes religious holidays, and is a conscientious churchgoer. He keeps fast-days, worships before the ikons with which every home is adorned, and frequently makes the sign of the Cross. Religion has, up to the present, played a very important part in the life of the nation, and has acquired a more national significance than in any other European country.

The national position of the Orthodox Church in Russia has been determined by the particular course of historic events. Although the Christian faith was introduced into Russia from Byzantium, and, moreover, the High, or so-called " Black," clergy in Russia belonged during the ninth and tenth centuries for the most part to the Greek nationality, the Greek Orthodox Church soon acquired a Russian national character. The Apostles of the Slavs, Cyril and Methodius, translated the Greek liturgical books into the Slavonic language, and thus gave to the Russian Orthodox Church its own national service. When in 1453 Constantinople was conquered by the Turks, the independence of the Russian Orthodox Church from her previous religious metropolis became assured.

At the head of the Russian Church stood the Patriarch of Moscow, who occupied a position independent of State rule. Peter the Great considered it necessary for the centralisation of power to abolish the Patriarchate and replace it by the Holy Sjmod, which was composed of the high dignitaries of the Church appointed by the Tsar, and one representative of the lay element, the Supreme Procurator of the Holy S5mod, whose duty it is to watch the interests of the State. The resolutions of the S5mod required to be sanctioned by the Tsar, and as the Synod controls all the administration of the Church, including its financial affairs, the Tsar became its all-powerful guardian. He did not care to interfere in questions of religious dogma, which were left to be settled by the Tserkovni Sobor (the Church Council) ; but in other respects Peter the Great made the Church an instrument of the State, and himself and the State instruments of the Church. This form of

State government cannot be called " Csesaro-Papacy," as it is sometimes erroneously styled ; but at any rate it was a national State institution serving religious and political purposes.

The father and predecessor of Peter the Great, Tsar Alexis Michaelovitch, commanded the Patriarch Nikon to correct mistakes in the translation of the Holy Books. Nikon's corrections, which were by no means a reform, but were only meant to be an improvement of the texts which had been transcribed, with many mistakes, by ignorant monks, brought about a religious schism, by which those who refused to accept the corrections of Nikon broke away and formed a separate body called the " Old Believers." These Old Believers had to endure many hardships until the year 1905, when they were recognised by the Russian Government. However, the Orthodox Church had up to the Revolution still many prerogatives, for instance, that of religious propaganda, while all other denominations were forbidden to proselytise.

The religious mind of the Russian people has also found expression in numerous religious sects, of which many bear distinct traces of higher spiritual conceptions and purer ethical principles.

The veneration of the numerous saints is another feature of the same order. Lectures describing their pious life, charity. Christian forbearance, and confidence in God, form a most popular pastime among the peasants at village social gatherings.

Up to the time of Peter the Great, the clergy were the chief representatives of national culture. When the House of Rurik, the founder of the Empire, had died out, the nation turned to Philaret, Patriarch of Moscow, asking him to crown his son, Michael Romanoff, Tsar of Russia.

Peter the Great, as already stated, revised the position of the clergy in the State and gave precedence to the nobility.

It fell to the lot of the Russian nobUity to become the chief factor of progress, of learning, and of intellectual

THE EVOLUTION OF THE STATE ii

development in Russia. They were able to fulfil this mission because they were not a caste or class, but an estate or group which constantly recruited itself from the various strata of the population, and stood in the closest connexion with it. The old feudal idea of nobility, derived from the possession of land, had been abolished by the Tartar yoke. Later on, the surviving remnants of the old Boyars were suppressed through the drastic measures of Ivan the Terrible and his successors. Peter the Great encountered no di£&- culty in establishing a new nobility founded on the idea of State service. On the other hand, only members of old noble families were admitted to it. Catherine the Great rescinded that condition, but still the State service remained in practice accessible only to noblemen, and in addition they had the privilege of possessing serfs.

Thanks to the liberal reforms of Alexander II, these restrictions were abolished. Henceforth Government service was open to every one. The right to become a hereditary nobleman was acquired by aU who had reached the rank of actual State Councillors, Lieutenant-Generals, or Vice-Admirals, or those who had received the Order of St. Vladimir. These distinctions were earned by a great number of persons, and this put the qualification for nobility on a very broad basis. By the abolition of serfdom the democratisation of the principle of aristocracy was carried a step further, seeing that the nobility lost that privilege which was tantamount to the right of owning land, as land without serfs had no value.

Since 1861 the Russian nobility have sold the greater part of their land, chiefly to peasants, descendants of serfs ; and being no longer in possession of land they have become a group of State employees, people engaged in liberal professions, representatives of provincial self-government, and so forth. This virtual revolution has brought about a closer connection between the nobility and the rest of the population, facilitated by the absence of titles and by the custom of addressing noblemen by their surnames and patronymics just like anybody else. Moreover, marriages took place between members of the nobility and other groups of the population without any suggestion of mesalliance.

It is true that Russia has also a titled nobility, but this does not take precedence in any way over the untitled nobility, except in the case of members of the Imperial House before the Revolution. The numerous princes were the offspring of the feudal Rurik princes, or were descended from Tartar or Caucasian princes. Representatives of other titled classes — counts, barons, vans, etc. — ^held their lineage for the most part from conquered provinces, as, for instance, Poland, the Baltic provinces, or Finland. But as a title in Russia is not necessarily connected with wealth or political nfluence, it is of little practical value. Socially, noble lineage is less thought of in Russia than in any other European country.. Moreover, plutocratic tendencies and the power exercised by the possession of wealth play in Russia a comparatively small part. Clever and gifted men, of whatever origin, can rise to the highest honours and position. For instance, Admiral Makaroff, General Kuropatkin, and many other persons in positions of trust were of peasant origin.

With few exceptions, as, for instance, in the case of the founder of modem Russian literature, Lomonossoff (1711- 1765), who was the son of a peasant, the chief poets, artists, literary and learned men, all belonged to the nobiUty. Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Lermontoff, Gogol, Turgenieff, Dostoievsky, and Tolstoy came from the land-owning nobility. This gives some idea of the important part which the Russian nobility I ave played in the intellectual development of the nation. It can be asserted that in Russia before the Revolution, roughly speaking, almost any one of importance belonged to the nobility, but that, on the other hand, there was no insurmountable obstacle to any one becoming a nobleman.

It is apparent, therefore, that in their inception and position the Russian nobility differ absolutely from the plutocratic aristocracy of Great Britain. Russia has no nobility in the English sense of the word. Th^re is no room and no necessity for it in Russia. Her nobility occupied the position, and has the character and importance, of the gentry or upper middle class in England. This difference bore out the democratic character of the Russian Empire, which may be described before the Revolution as a democracy furnished with a bureaucracy administered by a supreme autocratic power.

The third group, the burghers, meshtchanie, is not very well defined at the present time, as the greater part of the nobility have, as mentioned above, taken up their residence in the towns, the population of which is also mixed with a large number of peasants who have left the land in order to gain a livelihood elsewhere. The meshtchanie were composed originally of the merchant and artisan class. The merchants were intended by Peter the Great to form a close corporation, but later on various laws interfered with these limitations, with the result that from a practical point of view there seems at present no intrinsic necessity for a special group of burghers.

On the other hand, the fourth group, the peasants, form up to the present a well-defined separate body, endowed with special privileges and obeying special regulations. This group is the real mainstay of Russia, as Russia, broadly speaking, is a peasant State. Up to 1861 the peasants were serfs in the sense of being glebcB adscripti — that is to say, they were bound to remain at their place of abode, and belonged to the proprietors of the land. Broadly speaking, serfdom was a patriarchal form of social structure ; the brutality which naturally resulted from the system was in very many cases mitigated by the practical interest which kindly landlords took in the welfare of their serfs, by the common religion and race of both, and by the naturally gentle and forbearing nature of the Russian. But, of course, this deplorable system led to abuses, and to a state of dependence bordering on slavery. It condemned the greater part of the population of Russia to a state of perpe ual stagnation and an utter lack of personal freedom. Agr culture was carried on by old and inefficient methods. A part of the land was used in common, and belonged to the peasant community as a whole — the mir. According to the changes in the number of " souls," this land was constantly subdivided by the community under the direct control of the landlord, who had the right to demand a certain amount of work to be done by the peasants on his own estate in return for their allotment. When serfdom and the right of the landlord to the labour of the peasants was abolished by Alexander II in 1861, the common land remained at the disposal of the latter, and the landlord received from the State, as compensation for the loss of their labour, money certificates bearing percentages, and subject to redemption. The State in its turn imposed upon the village communities as a whole a tax, arranging for the payment of the percentage to the landlord and the gradual redemption of the money certificate. These certificates have now all been redeemed.

The peasant community, the mir, had to fix the amount to be paid by each person. It had the power to exact penalties from those who did not pay their quota at the right time, and even possessed the right to administer corporal punishment or to exile to Siberia any persons so condemned. To a great extent the mir thus took over the rights previously exercised by the landlords, and the peasants found themselves economically in a state of even greater dependence than before the abolition of serfdom. The harshness of this system was the direct result of the above-mentioned principle that the village community as a whole was responsible for the payment of the taxes. This system, the krugovaia porouka, meant practically that the industrious, sober, and worthy peasant had to pay for the lazy, drunken, and worthless one. Socialistic cranks tried to find in the krugovaia porouka a cure for all social evils. The mir system was praised as a panacea and an ideal arrangement for counteracting all the iUs that exist, owing to the difference between those who have and those who have not. Unfortunately, in practice the advantages of the mir and of the krugovaia porouka proved to be illusory.

The common ownership of the land involved a constant new partition of it, and made it impossible to improve the methods of cultivation.

The abolition of serfdom achieved only personal freedom ; it did not at all provide for economic prosperity and progress. The great economic advantages and moral value of personal ownership of the land had been totally left out of account by the reforms of 1861. The reformers did not wish to depart from the old principle that the ownership of land was assured to each individual through its common ownership by the village as a whole. But the constant increase of the population was necessarily followed by a corresponding decrease of the area which could be allotted to each person. In many parts of the country these allotments became too small to maintain a family. The happy (or rather unhappy) possessors of such allotments had therefore to look out for a living in the towns, in industrial works, and so forth, and derived no real benefit from the theoretically glorious fact that he was a member of the mir and, as such, a landowner.